12 to watch: Traci Lovitt

Traci Lovitt

One to watch: The head of the local office of this legal powerhouse has been on a hiring spree that shows no signs of letting up.

Even Traci Lovitt finds it hard to believe 2012 might be as busy for her as 2011.

Lovitt, head of Jones Day’s Boston office, spent the past frantic year starting up the powerhouse legal firm’s Hub operations — recruiting key attorneys and staff members, negotiating real estate leases, establishing a local presence in the city’s business community.

“They’ve kept me very busy,” said Lovitt, who transferred to Boston from New York last year in order to open and expand Jones Day’s Boston office.

Her efforts in 2011 were impressive: On behalf of Jones Day, she hired well-known local attorneys such as John Hanify from Hanify & King; John Casais, Susan Siebert and Bruce Raphael from Edwards Angell; and David Brewster from Skadden’s Boston office.

In all, Jones Day, which has more than 2,500 attorneys worldwide, now has 25 lawyers within its Boston office — and the growth is far from finished.

“It’s going to be more of the same in 2012, but at a more enhanced level,” said Lovitt. “I can already tell my first quarter is going to be all lunches and meetings, as we continue with our growth and recruitment.”

Lovitt, a longtime Jones Day partner and the “partner in charge” in Boston, is hesitant to say how many more attorneys Jones Day hopes to lure away from other city firms in 2012. At one point, she expressed hope Jones Day could double the size of its Boston office in 2012, but she has to be realistic.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see us double in size in two, three or five years,” she said.

Jones Day definitely has room to expand. Initially, the firm was based in temporary offices at 175 Federal St. But the firm recently leased space at 100 High St. — 18,600 square feet on the 21st floor and 17,200 square feet on the 22nd floor.

That’s more than enough room for additional attorneys and staff members — and more than enough room to further shake up the Boston legal community, as Jones Day establishes itself as a major player in the Boston business community.

“The (Jones Day) mandate is to find talent where talent can be found,” said Lovitt.

For Lovitt, Boston is a prime market for business law, with its strong financial, life sciences and high-tech industries.

The U.S. economy as a whole still faces “great economic uncertainty,” said Lovitt. But Boston’s economy is more solid and has been steadily recovering from the Great Recession, she noted.

“You can just feel it in the air that legal work is picking up,” she said. “It’s a great time to be doing this. The momentum is kicking in, and we’re ready. We’re becoming a force.”